Calling him a lucky man who received breaks from prosecutors, a federal judge sentenced former
Columbus nightclub owner Kevin Hightower to 21/2 years in prison yesterday for operating a
mortgage-fraud scheme.

U.S. District Judge Gregory L. Frost also ordered Hightower, 44, to pay $1.9 million in
restitution.

Hightower, of Taylor Mills Place in Reynoldsburg, could have been sentenced to 50 years after
pleading guilty in October to money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering and lying to
lenders. But he worked out a plea deal with prosecutors, who agreed to recommend 30 to 36 months in
prison, and Frost chose the lesser time.

“I’m going to remind you of how many breaks you’ve gotten along the way,” Frost said. When
Barbara Hightower begged the judge to give her son probation, Frost said the crime was too
serious.

An Internal Revenue Service investigation found that Hightower and others bought 38 Columbus
properties in 2006 and 2007 by lying on federal documents, illegally providing down payments and
cash incentives to buyers, and taking kickbacks. Hightower operated the conspiracy through his
real-estate investment company, Suite 500 LLC, and a branch of Premier Mortgage Funding of Ohio, a
mortgage brokerage.

He collected $1 million from the transactions, which involved 12 financial institutions.

Like similar schemes, this one involved getting hugely inflated appraisals for properties,
obtaining loans for the appraised amounts and then allowing the homes, most of them on the Near
East Side, to go into foreclosure after participants took their cuts.

Frost said the houses became a “blight on the neighborhood.”

Hightower is the former owner of Club Ice, a hip-hop club that had operated at 40 E. Long St.
Downtown until January 2010. He was indicted in May on charges of bank and wire fraud, conspiracy
to commit bank fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering and lying to a
lender.

The charge of lying to a lender involved a second scheme, in which Hightower, in the role of a
concert promoter, took $150,000 from his father’s charitable trust in 2009 to pay for a concert and
personal expenses.

Hightower apologized to his family yesterday in court.

“I knew these deals were too good to be true,” he said. “But I turned my head and let them play
fast and loose with the loan game.”